William L. Patenaude, a contributor to Catholic World Report, forwarded me the link to an essay, "A Special Vocation: To Show People How To Love", written by Dr. Paul Gondreau, Professor of Theology at Providence College and father of Dominic, the boy with cerebral palsy who was embraced by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square following the Easter Mass yesterday (video below). Dr. Gondreau writes:

“Small acts with great love,” Mother Teresa was fond of saying.
Yesterday, Pope Francis bestowed an extraordinary Easter blessing upon
my family when he performed such an act in embracing my son, Dominic,
who has cerebral palsy. The embrace occurred when the Pope spied my son
while touring the Square, packed with a quarter million pilgrims, in the
“pope mobile” after Mass. This tender moment, an encounter of a modern
Francis with a modern Dominic (as most know, tradition holds that St.
Francis and St. Dominic enjoyed an historic encounter), moved not only
my family (we were all moved to tears), not only those in the immediate
vicinity (many of whom were also brought to tears by it), not only by
thousands who were watching on the big screens in the Square, but by the
entire world. Images of this embrace quickly went viral, and by Easter
Sunday afternoon it was the lead picture on the Drudge Report, with the
caption, “Change Hatred into Love” (a paraphrase of Pope Francis’ Urbi
et Orbi message that followed shortly thereafter), where
it remains even as I write this. Fox News, NBC Nightly News, ABC
Nightly News, and CNN all showed clips of it. Lead pictures of it were
found in Le Figaro, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, inter alia.

It is often difficult to try to express to people who do not have
special needs children what kind of untold sacrifices are demanded of us
each and every day. And as for Dominic, he has already shared in
Christ’s Cross more than I have throughout my entire life multiplied a
thousand times over. What is the purpose in all this, I ask?
Furthermore, I often tend to see my relationship with Dominic in a
one-sided manner. Yes, he suffers more than me, but it’s constantly ME
who must help HIM. Which is how our culture often looks upon the
disabled: as weak, needy individuals who depend so much upon others, and
who contribute little, if anything, to those around them.

Pope Francis’ embrace of my son yesterday turns this logic completely
on its head and, in its own small yet powerful way, shows once again
how the wisdom of the Cross confounds human wisdom.

Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight.

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